3.26.13

Gerald the Dog Comes to New York City

Gerald is not your ordinary dog. Gerald was born in 2008 as part of a rebrand for British design studio Lazerian and came as nine easy to assemble paper panels. Starting in 2011, hundreds of Geralds were shipped to artists' studios all over the world with the only instruction for creatives being to put their own spin on it. Now all 100+ Geralds have been wrangled and can be seen together for the first time starting in May. B&A artists Jimi Crayon, Kai & Sunny, Simon Spilsbury, Stan Chow, and Tatiana Arocha will all have their very own Gerald on display at the exhibit. The exhibition will run from May 17-19th with a special preview on Thursday the 16th in New York City.

Jimi Crayon's Gerald (pictured above) is aptly titled "The Universe, flys, diamonds, rocks and paint". Here's what he had to say about his creation: "I like to work across any and all mediums. I decided to bombard my Gerald with everything I was working on at the time to capture some real energy and variety. I worked across a flattened Gerald randomly placing my imagery across the cuts and folds with little thought, meaning the piece could take on a life of its own during construction. I didn't really know how it would look until I saw the finished dog."

Kai & Sunny: "Flower"
"Sunny and I were amazed by the structure of the Gerald Dogs so when asked to be involved it was a definite yes. The large Gerald has so many platforms and angles our flower print felt like the correct piece. Our line work fitted the various platforms perfectly. For us to see our 2D print 3D was very exciting. We were thrilled with the result."

Simon Spilsbury: Dogod 01 & Dogod 02
About Dogod 01:
"You don't get to draw on an origami dog very often, so that was inspiring enough. This was experimental and painted after construction so was a bit suck it and see. I have a spontaneous, impatient style and it was a test not to stamp on the damn thing when it started bending in my grip as I wrestled with its planes and angles. I used spray paint and stencils to start, adding character detail later. I think I painted it out twice and started again before settling with the madness you see in front of you."

About Dogod 02:
"This was drawn onto template. An altogether easier task than manoeuvring brushes and pens around the constructed version. I adopted my BuiltByPeople amorphous characters, laid down on a sprayed background."

Stan Chow: Pink Tulips
"When I first saw the actual model, the first thing I did was to give it cartoon eyes and pair of wings. This is what naturally comes first when I doodle. I tried it and I thought it would have looked like I was taking this project seriously. Ultimately I just wanted to do something simple and elegant, as that's how I want most my work to look, so I decided on a repeat flower pattern."

Tatiana Arocha: Don't Stay Too Long in the Woods
"I love the process of illustrating, losing all sense of time while imagining entire worlds down to the finest detail. I want people to fully immerse themselves in my images discover something new with every viewing."